In The Message of the Sphinx Robert Bauval, veteran of The
Orion Mystery, joins forces with Graham Handcock, author of Fingerprints of the
Gods, to settle once and for all the riddle of the Sphinx. Though the title of the
work is alluring and the opening pages offer the promise of "hidden libraries"
and lost, pre-dynastic, Egyptian civilizations, the remainder of the book is as dull and
uninteresting as a Henry James novel, often oscillating between the extremes of a travel
narrative and techno-babble. It makes claims that it never even attempts to
substantiate--often referring the reader to copies of their previous works in the hopes of
boosting their own royalty checks--and leaves the reader with not so much as even the
stuff of one fantasy.

Part I, entitled "Enigmas," is meant to lay the groundwork for
Bauval and Handcocks theory of the Sphinx as a time marker, supposedly built some
12,500 years ago. Its principle points, aside from the usual mumbo-jumbo about the
unparalleled precision of Egyptian monuments being proof of some ancient, esoteric
knowledge, revolve around the geological findings of Robert Schoch, the construction
method of the Sphinx, and its strangely disproportionate head.

The idea that the Sphinx is much older than previously imagined underlies
all of Bauval and Handcocks theory. To substantiate this claim they make use of the
research of Boston Universitys Robert Schoch, a professor of geology, who was first
recruited to the mystery of the Sphinx by John Anthony West. After studying the erosional
patterns of the Sphinx, Schoch concluded that the heavy degree of weathering was caused by
rainfall and could not have occurred if the Sphinx, like the Great Pyramids, was only
4,500 years old.

Bauval and Gilbert use Schochs data to "prove" that the
Sphinx is really much older than previously imagined and set the date for its construction
at 10,500 bc. However, when their own geologist states that it is more likely that the
stone had been weathered since only 5,000 to 7,000 BC. Bauval and Hancock mention it only
casually and are quick to attribute the discrepancy to Schochs, and for that matter
any scientists, overly cautious nature rather than to the inadequacies of their own
theory.

One of the strangest facets of Bauval and Handcocks theory is their
purported construction method of the Sphinx--a huge object some 66 feet high and 240 feet
long. They claim that "the Sphinx itself was made by hewing a deep, horseshoe shaped
trench

out of the bedrock of the Giza plateau, leaving a central core which was
then carved into shape...." (31) This method of construction is essential to their
theory because it allows them to set the erosion pattern of the stone at zero--a stone
beneath ground cannot erode--and thus eliminate the hypothesis that the Sphinx was carved
out of a large, natural outcropping of rock which had already experienced substantial
erosion.

Bauval and Hancock downplay the difficulties involved in digging such a
trench, but it is something that must be scrutinized. To dig a trench that was wide enough
to hold the Sphinx some seventy feet deep into the earth and extend it for almost 250 feet
would take monstrous degrees of effort. Not to mention that the trench itself would have
to be much larger than this as the Sphinx was carved from a central core that by necessity
would have had to have been larger than the Sphinx itself. Additionally, from the pictures
provided the walls that surround the Sphinx complex are nowhere near 70 feet tall. In fact
they are much closer to ten.

Because of Bauval and Hancocks need to "zero" the
erosional patterns, they are also forced to come up with bizarre theories concerning the
disproportionate shape of the Sphinxs head in relation to the rest of its body.
Though they claim that the Sphinx was a monument highly revered by the ancient Egyptians,
they propose that successive pharaohs literally whittled away the head in an effort to
bring the original face of the Sphinx closer to a representation of their own face. This
constant re-working of the Sphinxs facial features is what accounts for the its head
being only 50-65% of what it was originally: "[T]he head was once much larger...it
was reduced in size by recarving" (9).

Again, the more logical explanation would be that the Egyptians found an
already heavily weathered natural rock foundation and used it to suit their needs. Since
the formations natural features would largely constrain efforts to modify it, this
would eliminate the need to explain the head size and the need for the builders to have
dug so deep into the bedrock and make for a much more parsimonious explanation.

In Part II, "The Seekers," Hancock and Bauval devote some 43
pages (pp. 85-128) of their book to the elucidation of a conspiracy involving Zahi Hawass
the Director-General of the Giza pyramids, the esteemed American archaeologist Mark
Lehner, the head of the German Archaeological Institute Rainer Stadelmann, and the
Freemasons. Throughout this section, they go out of their way to demonize and ridicule the
members of this vague conspiracy. They focus particularly on Hawass, using close-up
photographs and quotes most likely taken out of context to make him seem more like the
Ayatollah than an archaeologist.

Bauval and Handcocks conspiracy theory is a whirlwind ride that
begins in the early 1970s with then undergraduate student Mark Lehner receiving a grant
from the Edgar Cayce Foundation. Apparently the ECF wanted to pay an American student to
go to Egypt and study at the American University in Cairo. In return the student would
worm his way into the Egyptian Antiquities political scene and use his influence to garner
permits for the ECF to excavate in the Valley of the Kings. Well, Mark Lehner went to
Egypt, earned his degree, and then failed to use his position to help the ECF conduct its
"research" at the pyramids.

Bauval and Hancock claim that the only logical explanation for
Lehners abandonment of the ECF is Zahi Hawasss own scheme to keep the ECF from
gathering the proof it needs to establish the veracity of all of Cayces prophesies,
especially those pertaining to the "Hall of Records" that is supposedly buried
under the paws of the Sphinx. Bauval and Hancock even mention that some prominent early
Egyptologists had ties to Freemasonry, and that perhaps the Freemasons have some secret,
vested interest in keeping the "Hall of Records" buried in the sand. Though
conspiracy theories are fun and intriguing, it seems much more reasonable that an
archaeology student saw a chance to get his education for next to nothing, accepted the
ECFs money, and then refused to discredit himself in the intellectual community by
further associating himself with the ECFs exploratory investigations.

After "The Seekers," Bauval and Handcock move onto ideas
involving duality in Egyptian theology. This section and the following section on the
astronomical alignments on which part of their theory is predicated seem purposefully
confusing. Their are many technical references to precession and alignments of stars.
While some of this is necessary information in order to properly explain their theory, a
good deal of it seems overly technical with many references to the authors
"earlier works"--in fact I counted at least seven such references. It left me
wondering if Bauval and Handcock purposefully inundated their readers with technical
jargon to both bolster their theory by the illusion of irrefutable numerical data and also
to boost paperback sales of their previous books.

A key aspect to this section is the idea that the monuments at Giza are an
attempt to map the "Duat" or heavens onto the Giza plateau and that the Sphinx
was purposefully positioned in such a way as to be a time marker so that later generations
would always know the date of "Zep Tepi" or the "First Time." Bauval
and Hancock place Zep Tepi at approximately 10,500 BC when, due to a phenomenon known as
precession--the slow, cyclical wobble of the earth that causes sun to rise in different
constellations at the vernal equinox--the sun rose in Leo. Bauval and Hancock allege that
it is because of Leos association with the first time that the Sphinx is leonine in
form.

That being said, the question that comes to mind is, "Did the
Egyptians ascribe leonine qualities to the constellation that we know as Leo, or to them
was it some other creature--a hippo perhaps?" Virginia Trimble, whose credits Bauval
and Handcock go out of their way to enumerate--Vice-president of the American Astronomical
Society, senior professor of astronomy at UCLA and the University of Maryland, "an
acute and formidable thinker" who was "undaunted" by the Egyptological
establishment--casts a large shadow of doubt upon this issue. While quoting her on the
astrological significance of the shafts in the Great Pyramid, they actually undermine
their argument: "Which constellations the Egyptians saw in the sky is still something
of a mystery" (244). I looked at several sites on the internet, among them a site
constructed by the University of Chicagos Oriental Institute, but I could find
nothing that stated our zodiac, which is based on the Greek zodiac, is also a replica or
even derivative of an earlier Egyptian zodiac. Like most of the rest of the book, Bauval
and Handcock never provide any supplemental information in regards to this question.

After concluding that the Sphinx was meant to mark Zep Tepi and was
positioned in such a manner as to gaze at Leo during the vernal equinox of 10,500 bc,
Bauval and Handcock delve into the complicated precessional calculations the form the crux
of their argument. These calculations are complicated, and diagrams are inserted to
supposedly clarify their points. However, the majority of the diagrams are unlabeled,
leaving the reader to figure out exactly what the authors are describing. Consequently,
with only a vague caption as a guide, the diagrams serve more to obfuscate the reader than
anything else.

This is how the book ends. This is how the book ends. This is how the book
ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. After some 270 pages, most of which is overly
technical jargon, Bauval and Gilbert return to the possibilities of undiscovered cultures
lurking in the sands of the past. They make vague references to hidden libraries and
fabulous dates. But these passages seem merely obligatory, as if the authors felt
compelled to mention such things even though they had dealt with them in only the most
superficial of manners. What disappointed me most about this book, was not that they
failed to prove their hypothesis, but that they failed to entertain me in the process. I
dont read books like The Message of the Sphinx to be ensconced in star
charts, precession, and angles of ascent. I read them in the hopes that the author can
strike some mystical chord that makes my pillow seem softer at bed-time.

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